Follow the author of this article

Follow the topics within this article

But academics appear finally to have cracked what in many households is the most contentious question of all – who does the dishes.

A new research paper presented to the annual conference of the Royal Economic Society applies mathematical formulas to assess how couples divide up the chores in the way they do and why.

It finds that a simple rule appears to be at work in most families, but one unlikely to herald domestic harmony for all – that money talks.

Secret of a man?s happiness: do the dishes for a quiet lifeCredit:
CORBIS

The study, led by Alexandros Theloudis, a micro-economist at University College London, concludes that as women’s average earnings have increased over the last 30 years, they have simultaneously cut back on domestic chores while men have taken on more.

Significantly, it finds, that the shift cannot simply be attributed to women spending more time at work and therefore having less at home.

The average reduction in wives’ share of housework has, the study concludes, significantly outstripped the increase in time they spend in the workplace over the same period.

That suggests that money itself has improved the status of women in their own homes, shifting the balance of what the study calls “intra-family bargaining power” when it comes to dividing chores.

"The results suggest that the narrowing gender wage gap improved women’s bargaining power in the family resulting in a shift of household work from women to men.”

Alexandros Theloudis

It raises the possibility that men are subconsciously pulling their weight about the house more than in previous generations in order to compensate for their diminishing status as traditional breadwinner.

The study draws on findings from a long-running US research project which has been charting the lives of a sample of households since the late 1960s to track social and economic changes.

Using figures relating to married couples between 1980 and 2009, Mr Theloudis calculated that if the gender pay gap was reduced by 10 per cent women would be likely to spend four per cent more time in paid employment but 14 per cent less time on housework.

He estimates that, after the impact of new technologies such as dishwashers or microwaves are taken into account, about half of the overall cut in women’s share of housework can be explained by them switching to paid work and the remainder simply by them having more say in the household.

The paper, presented at the society’s annual conference in Brighton, concludes: “The results suggest that the narrowing gender wage gap improved women’s bargaining power in the family resulting in a shift of household work from women to men.”

Mr Theloudis explained: “When we say that the gender pay gap has narrowed down what it means is that women’s hourly wage has increased relative to men's and relative to the past.

“As women’s value in the labour market has increased compared to what it was 30 years ago that has been reflected in their bargaining power.

“And the major implication of that is a transfer of household labour to their husband.”